October 22, 2008. For thirty
years I taught philosophy classes at Sacramento City College (SCC),
a community college in a large metropolitan area. My students
might not have been representative of California's population,
but one thing remained constant over the decades: immigrants
from dozens of countries enrolled in my classes and they seemed
to reflect the immigration patterns in the state.

When I arrived at SCC
in 1977, I had several students from Iran, Jordan, Uganda and
other African countries. After the U.S. tried to repair the
damage we'd done to Vietnam, my classes were filled with
refugees from southeast Asia. I felt privileged to be able to
meet and teach every group of immigrants who came my way,
looking for a chance to educate themselves and make something of
their lives. When I retired in 2007, I hadn't had a student from
Iran or Africa for about twenty years. None of my students from
the Middle East returned to class after 9/11. My students from
southeast Asian cultures were now born in the U.S.

During the last few
years of my career, a number of my "foreign" students came from
the former Soviet Union, mostly from the Ukraine. Many of them
were very bright and determined to get an education. They were
some of my best students. One peculiar trait that seemed to be
shared by all of them was Christian fundamentalism. They were
particularly vocal about being anti-evolution, anti-abortion,
and anti-homosexual. They were also vocal about loving the
Truth, but it was apparent that they didn't care about the truth
in the same way that I did. If I thought that because they said
that they believed the Truth would always win out, I would be
able to present evidence and argue with them on a rational
basis, I would be wrong. What they meant was that they believed
the Bible contains Absolute Truth and was the Word of God, so it
would win out. These students had little interest in evidence or
logic (but they would give it to you, if they thought their
grade depended on it).

Their understanding
of the Bible is that God created everything in six days, so
evolution didn't happen. Furthermore, belief in evolution is the
cause of the evils of materialism that are corrupting our
morals. Allowing abortion and homosexuality are two such evils;
they are abominations in the eyes of their Lord and must not be
allowed.

Like many other
Christian fundamentalists in the U.S., the Ukrainians want to
see their beliefs and values put into law. They are not
satisfied to believe their fairy tale about the six-day creation
or to refrain from having abortions or engage exclusively in
other-sex partnerships. They want to require everyone to
do so.

I wonder if the
dominance of the religious fascists in this country is not one
of the main attractions to many people thinking about
immigrating here. Sure, there is the belief that we are the land
of wealth and promise for a life of luxury, but the power that
the religious fascists—those who want
a "Christian" nation made in the image of their belief system to
be foisted on all of us—may also be a
lure that attracts immigrants with a similar hope.

Being intelligent,
the Ukrainian students took a page from the Biblical
fundamentalists who tried to get evolution out of public schools
and replace it with Biblical fantasies: they ran for office.
They haven't yet tried to control school boards, as far as I
know, but at one of SCC's sister colleges, American River
College (ARC), a group of fundamentalists (mostly Slavic
immigrants) got themselves elected to positions on the student
council. This would be a relatively easy task, since out of
about 37,000 students only several hundred will ever vote in a
student election. (About 10% of these students are both enrolled
in English as a Second Language classes and list a Slavic
tongue as their first language.*)

Since community
colleges don't write their science curricula to satisfy the
students' religious beliefs, and since abortions aren't
performed on campus, and since community colleges don't
discriminate against homosexuals, you might wonder what good it
would do the religious fascists to get elected to the student
council of a community college. Well, it just so happens that
California has an initiative (Proposition
8) on next month's ballot that will make same-sex marriage
unconstitutional. The student council was able to get a majority
to vote to support Proposition 8. The action has
caused an
uproar on campus and has led to a recall effort to remove
nine of the student council members, including three Mormons who
voted with the Slavic Christians.

The religious
fascists at ARC have their own club: the Christian Civilization
Club. Their faculty advisor (one is required to have a campus
club) resigned when the club sponsored Islamo-Fascism Awareness
Week.

What's happening at
ARC is happening across the state of California and in several
other states. John McCain says he supports an initiative in his
state of Arizona that will ban same-sex marriages. His running
mate, Sarah Palin, says she supports an amendment to the federal
constitution that will ban same-sex marriages in all the states
and territories. (If they really believe that marriage is
sacred, they ought to support taking it out of the hands of
civil authority altogether and make marriage a purely religious
act, like baptism. If they really believe that we must keep to
the tradition of marriage being between a man and a woman, then
they ought to support making divorce illegal. For 1500
years, the Christian tradition forbade divorce. To be
consistent, shouldn't the religious fascists be advocating a
return to the no-divorce tradition?)

The supporters of
Proposition 8 are running ads featuring a married couple from
another state who were appalled that their second-grader came
home from school and reported that his teacher read them a story
about two princes getting married. The parents sued the school
district, even though the teacher was not promoting a school
district policy. The parents consider reading such a story to
their child as "indoctrination" in morals they oppose. I'm sure
many parents feel the same way about evolution or the civil
rights movement. So what? If you don't want your child subjected
to values different than your own peculiar religious fantasies,
then don't send the kid to public school.

We had a similar kind
of nonsensical battle in California many years ago when there
was a ballot proposal that would have banned homosexuals from
teaching in public schools. State senator John Briggs argued
that if we didn't pass a law forbidding homosexuals from
teaching in public schools, it would be the end of civilization
as we know it. Obviously, he was wrong. Homosexuals continue to
teach in our public schools and the bigoted civilization Briggs
wanted to be eternal has not ended yet.

Tradition is
irrelevant to whether we should ban same-sex marriage. Religious
beliefs are irrelevant to whether we should ban same-sex
marriage. The issue ought to be about freedom, happiness, and
potential for harm. As to the latter, we can't let a group of
religious fascists dictate what is and what isn't harmful. They
think homosexuality is immoral. Fine, but keep your belief to
yourself. Don't think you have the right to impose it on the
rest of us. I call you fascists because you aren't satisfied
with being left alone to not have an abortion or not have to
marry a homosexual. You want to dictate that all members of
society have to follow your code. Why shouldn't gays be as free to marry as other-sex
couples? If this is what they want in their pursuit of
happiness, who are we to deny it to them? They harm nobody by
their actions, except for hurting the feelings of religious
bigots.

You Republicans who
say you want government to stay out of our business, why aren't
you leading the fight to support the right of same-sex couples
to express their love for each other? Why are you supporting
government intrusion into our lives? If government has the power
to forbid gays from marrying, it has the power to forbid anyone
it wants from marrying. Government should stick to what it's
good at. Legislating morals is not one of the things government
is good at.

And you, Senator
Obama, who say you are for change, change, change, why aren't
you supporting the freedom to choose who to marry? Are you and
Biden really opposed to the freedom to choose one's spouse, or
are you just afraid of the political fallout?

For the record:

Barack Obama "opposes same-sex marriage, but also opposes a
constitutional ban. Says he would repeal the Defense of Marriage
Act and voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment. As stated
on the Obama campaign Web site, he supports full civil unions
that 'give same-sex couples equal legal rights and privileges as
married couples, including the right to assist their loved ones
in times of emergency as well as equal health insurance,
employment benefits, and property and adoption rights.' "

Joe Biden "opposes same-sex marriage. Voted against a
constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage. Supports
civil unions. Says he believes legal recognition should not be
denied to same-sex couples. Advocates re-examining federal laws,
including the tax code, to ensure national laws are not unfair
to same-sex couples and that committed adults who are adopting
are not discriminated against because of sexual orientation.
Supports letting states determine how to recognize civil unions
and define marriage. Also supports ending the military's
'don't ask, don't tell' policy. Supports adding sexual orientation to
the definition of hate crimes."

Sarah Palin "supported an amendment to the Alaska state
constitution that would have banned same-sex marriage, but,
during her tenure as governor, vetoed a bill that would have
denied health benefits to same-sex partners of public employees
on grounds that it was unconstitutional."